Academic and Socio-Economic Factors Related to Entrance and Retention at Two- and Four-Year Colleges in the Late 1960s.

Jaffe, A. J.; Adams, Walter

The demand for open, universal higher education is increasing, yet little is known about what happens to educationally disadvantaged youth who enter selective or even nonselective 2- or 4-year colleges, about the effectiveness of supplementary academic assistance, or the viability of compensatory programs. This study is based on a 1965 Census Bureau survey of a national sample of high school seniors. Information was obtained on post-high school plans, as well as personal and background data. The purpose of this study was to correlate eight variables with post-high school behavior, especially the dropout rate, and to make policy recommendations based on the findings. The variables were: (1) the student's high school curriculum, (2) student's estimate of his own brightness, (3) average high school grade, (4) the college entrant's estimate of his brightness relative to his college classmates, (5) the average college grade, (6) family income, (7) occupation of head of household, and (8) years of schooling completed by father. The findings indicated that the student's high school curriculum was the overriding factor not only for determining whether the student entered college or not, but also for the type of college entered, and for continuing or dropping out. The other academic and socioeconomic variables also had strong relationships to college entrance and, with the exception of family income, to choice of college and continuation in 4-year colleges. (AF)